


Safe

by inlovewithnight



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-10
Updated: 2010-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 04:05:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt was "hasn't really slept in seven years--safe."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe

Ronon passes the watch over to Teyla just after the second moon passes its zenith. The midpoint of the night, according to McKay's calculations; on this world, that means about four Lantean hours until sunrise.

There are shadows under Teyla's eyes, but she smiles as she joins him on his final and her initial circuit of the perimeter of their camp. She has a long series of trade negotiations ahead of her in the daylight, and should be sleeping. Ronon and Sheppard both had offered to take her share of the night watch, but she refused, saying that she would rather have a stretch of time to think than time to sleep.

Ronon thinks that is ridiculous bordering on insane, but he knows better than to argue with Teyla about these things. Or anything. It never gets him anywhere.

They walk one cycle of the perimeter together, and then she touches his arm and smiles again, nodding toward the tent. His watch is done and he will rest, say the lines of her jaw and the flash of her eyes. He grazes his knuckles over her arm, feeling the muscles beneath the smooth skin, one comrade to another, before he slips away into the dark.

Inside the tent, the bedrolls are spread out haphazardly, packs used for pillows, the blankets offered by the villagers set aside in concession to the warmth of the night. They're scratchy, too, Ronon remembers from carrying half of them back to the campsite. McKay thought they were loaded with allergens, which must be why they aren't being used as softer pillows than the packs. Probably was a fight about that while Ronon was out on watch. He has no regrets about missing _that_.

Sheppard is half-awake, eyes open a narrow slit while he lies sprawled crosswise to the tent. Ronon steps over him to reach the bedroll that Teyla had left, and once he's done that and been confirmed in Sheppard's mind as present and accounted for, Sheppard turns onto his stomach, buries his face in the pack, grunts absently and falls asleep.

McKay is curled up on his side in the corner, his face tucked up against the tent wall. Ronon grabs one of McKay's ankles and hauls him in toward the center of the space, earning a mumble of protest but no more than that.

It's a safe night. There is no tension in the air. They can all asleep.

Ronon settles on his bedroll and closes his eyes before the thought fully hits him and he realizes what he's done. They can all sleep. His eyes are closed. It's safe here.

He is on a strange world, with no Satedans at his back. Only people who, by all measures he would have used for most of his life, are barely more than strangers. And yet he is lying down among them, closing his eyes and surrendering to sleep, trusting them to watch his back.

Something in him rebels against that, screams silently in protest inside his mind. In his years of running, he never would've tolerated this. He hardly slept at all in those seven years, didn't dare, couldn't spare the vigilance. What has changed that now he thinks he can? Sateda is still gone. The Wraith are still hunting.

McKay mumbles in his sleep and kicks out at something, his foot rasping against the fibers of the bedroll. Sheppard's breathing is as even and steady as Ronon's own heartbeat in his chest. From outside the tent there is only silence, but he knows Teyla is watching over them, taking slow and measured steps to every circuit of the camp.

Ronon can rise from a dead sleep and have a knife in his hand in the time it takes to draw a breath. He trusts his instincts, trusts his training. And apparently, slow and steady and without realizing it, he has come to trust these three as well. Trust them like Satedans, like self. His comrades in arms. His people.

He shakes his head and turns onto his side, settling carefully equidistant between Sheppard and McKay. He can think about this later, or more likely, not think about it at all. It is what it is, and having people to watch his back is better than not. They'll need him to watch their backs in return in the morning, and Ronon never lets his comrades down.

And so he sleeps.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Safe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2838194) by [Hananobira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hananobira/pseuds/Hananobira)




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